SF Giants finally beat Reds, in nice ‘road’ effort

It had to feel weird even if everyone knew it was coming, Barry Zito jogging to the bullpen mound in his road grays, the Reds taking the field to a rousing Bronx cheer and Gregor Blanco stepping in to begin the Cincinnati “home” game at AT&T Park.

It was Opposite Night in more ways the one: The Giants beat the Reds for the first time in six tries this year.

They grabbed a quick 4-0 lead and won the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader 5-3. The Giants had taken another ritual beating from Cincinnati in the opener, 9-3, with spot starter Eric Surkamp allowing seven of the runs in 2 2/3 innings.

The nightcap victory was Bruce Bochy’s 1,500th as a major-league manager, against 1,498 losses.

The Giants reached the 100-game mark at 46-54, their worst record at the milestone since they were 42-58 in 2008. That team was no trying to defend a World Series championship, of course.

The Giants lost ground in the National League West, falling 6 ½ games behind the rampaging first-place Dodgers.

The offense handed Barry Zito a 4-0 lead after two innings in the nightcap yet he could not stay upright long enough to qualify for what would have been his first win since May 30.

Zito would not have been credited with his first road win of 2013. Even though Cincinnati batted last and wore home-white pants (with red tops) it was a home game for all the stats.

Bochy removed him with two outs in the fifth after Todd Frazier hit a two-out double that narrowed a Giants lead to 5-3. Gregor Blanco and Brandon Crawford made two strong throws that nearly got Jay Bruce at the plate.

Official scorer Michael Duca credited Casilla with the win. Romo secured a four-out save, striking out Brandon Phillips to strand the potential tying runs in the eighth.

The Reds improved to 5-0 against the Giants with their opening win. In those five games they outscored the Giants 34-6 and outhit them 60-22, an astonishing advantage for one big-league team over another.

Then, in this backwards game, the Giants treated spot starter and Pacific native Greg Reynolds the way the Reds treated Eric Surkamp in the first game.

Rudely.

The Giants scored three runs, two on a Pablo Sandoval double, the other on a Hunter Pence single. Third-base coach Tim Flannery, who got Buster Posey thrown out at home trying to score from first on a Sandoval double to the left-center gap, was not gun shy in a similar situation (with one out instead of none).

This time Posey scored easily.

Brandon Crawford’s double and Gregor Blanco’s one-out sacrifice fly extended the lead to 4-0 in the fourth.

The Reds halved it with a two-run second, both runs scoring on a double by Corky Miller, who was 2-for-20 with one RBI in the majors this season. Before the inning could get out of hand, Zito struck out Reynolds and Shin-Soo Choo to end it.

A bases-loaded one-out rally for the Giants in the fifth yielded only one run, on a Brandon Belt slow roller. Tony Abreu started his second scoring inning of the night with a single.